Government raises fine for continuing to use student public transport card

Last year, sixty thousand former students had to pay a fine because they hadn’t cancelled their student travel product in time. The government is now raising this fine from 194 euros to 300 euros a month.

Some former students fail to cancel their student travel entitlement after six months, despite receiving letters and reminders. The number of students involved is between twelve and fifteen thousand.

The government feels that the fine is too low for these students. Anyone who regularly travels long distances by public transport would be better off paying the fine than using a normal public transport card. By raising the fine, the government hopes to end this situation.

D66 has asked questions and wants to see the calculations: who is actually better off paying these fines? And do former students actually know that they are no longer entitled to the student travel product? The party suggests that the government could raise the fine gradually, “for example after the second month after the end of the student’s eligibility”.

Every year, tens of thousands of students forget to cancel their student public transport product. The fines amount to millions. The ‘student travel product’ does not disappear automatically from the public transport chip card when students are no longer eligible. They have to remove it themselves.